The Fallacy Arc
by Saeriel
Summary: Many questions were never asked, and many more answers never even implied - Why Celeborn really stayed in Middle-earth; and why Galadriel let him. GaladrielFëanor, with a side order of hedonism and shiny objects. Dark, angsty, unrequited love, etc. etc.
1. Echo

E C H O

First in the Fallacy Arc

By Saeriel

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"When our memories outweigh our dreams, we become old."

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He remembered. He remembered the sound of the night wind through his hair; the subtle taste of flower blossoms in the spring upon the air; the sight of wide, uncaring spirals of golden leaves as they wove intricate tapestries with themselves and each other; the velvet feel of tender grass yielding beneath his back; the smell of a lover's hair as he slipped into her arms.

He remembered. He remembered the sound of the music of battle, with the proud trumpets and the low moans and the high screams; the taste of victory in a mouth that spoke of defeat; the sight of her smile when she did not smile for his sake; the feel of blood catching in the hollow of his throat when it had been shed by her; the smell of fire in a forest of memories.

He remembered. He remembered the echoes of a duel once the combatants had already fallen, dead, onto the on marble floors; the taste of tears after they have slipped through crusting of another's lifeblood; the sight of a sea that he yearned to yearn for; the feel of soft lips that had kissed a century ago; the lingering smell of another that could not be dispelled by flowers or spices.

He remembered. He did not wish to.

It was true that he did not have to walk alone; indeed, as Lord of the Golden Wood, others would be eager to have his company, and, had he been of a lighter mood, he them. There were fair minds of fair temperament in his woods; there were fair voices that could charm the _mallorn _to blossom in midwinter, fair hands that could coax beauty into a blade; fair faces that would let him forget, if only for a few moments.

Lórien the Fair, it was called. Lórien, the Valley of Singing Gold; Lórien, the Dream. Fair Lórien, where everything was fair in seeming and what flaws there were just made the whole place all the more fair.

He remembered her voice as she spoke longingly of another Lórien, Lórien in Valinor. She spoke of forgetting, of dreams in golden fields and silver lakes and _mithril _beaches. She spoke of how the jaded were eased; the bloodstained forgiven; the blue given comfort.

He remembered the longing in her voice when they first came here together, how they would make another Lórien to help others forget. A Lórien for those who were old, like her, so they could remember the stars of Doriath and the pride of Gondolin. So they could remember, escape and forget.

A thousand years they had helped Elves and Men alike forget in their woods, or let them remember what they only knew from song or wistful tale. Memory would forget itself, and all they would know would be peace.

Yet they could not. Lord and Lady, masters of the dreams of others, could not. They could not forget the past since it was before them each day, either when he woke to dawn and saw that smile on her face, or she when she woke from her dreams and remembered them with far too much clarity.

Those dreams. He could live with the terrible Kinslaying that her hands had so graced, as she had long years ago after that final innocence had been lost. She would look into the Mirror, poised and accepting, and see Alqualondë and not flinch. She remembered that without pain. It was healed, and had been since before they had exchanged the silver betrothal rings.

Those dreams! Oh, how he could hear her murmur names, names that should have been his alone, given to her dreams. Names that she had never uttered, never even offered with her eyes. Names implied by a kiss, a marriage, a child, but never truly given. Names _he_ gave willingly, eagerly; which she received, but had not allowed entrance to her heart.

Dreams. She yearned for another penance, another chance. She had always known she would be able to redeem herself in the eyes of the Valar; she was still Artanis, still Nerwen, still a loremaster and still a warrior. She had always known she would return home, to the true Lórien she had so desperately tried to imitate.

And her doubt, her one uncertainty… That was her dream. She dreamt of the Sea, of redemption and of a Grey Ship only because those were certainties, necessary parts of a larger dream. Her dream. What she dreamed of every night, the only thing she would smile at with her entire soul.

Fëanor.

Spirit of Fire and Heart of Ice—a litany, a mantra that many had whispered and said in spiteful voices. One time, just once, that had been uttered in her presence—a young man in Undómiel's retinue, who studied the lore and thought it suitable conversation for those who had made it. He could see that anger in her eyes, the anger that never burned when he was slighted; only for herself. He could see it burn like a slow fire that smoldered beneath the forest floor that would burst into inferno on its own time. Her lips, those lips that whispered the name of the Son of Finwë every evening when he was not supposed to hear, set in a line that could not sing nor say a fair word. They were set with pride; set in stone; set in the jewels of the Two Trees that had been made in her honor.

She did not do anything to the rash Elf, though he was bidden to leave by Arwen, who knew her grandmother's anger, since she had done the same once as well. It was whispered in the halls that such was her hatred for Fëanor, that he had done her great wrong with the Kinslayings and burning the White Ships.

They were wrong. She regretted them, true—regretted opposing Fëanor, regretted that her conscience would not let her fight with her lover. Regretted that she had not thrown her pride to the side so she could admit love.

Oh, he knew they had not exchanged the silver rings—he knew that she had refused him the three locks of her hair, that pride had kept them apart. But he also knew that pride could not lie to the mind, only advise and argue—and that now, she had lost her pride.

He may have given her a name, a beautiful, beautiful name, but he knew that name was not his to give. He didn't even have the right to give her beautiful names. She had accepted only because she did not want to hurt him, and used it only so he would not weep with despair.

He remembered when she had first realized that he knew her heart. He remembered that long, sad look, how she looked away and how her hair fell to hide her face. So much went unsaid; he remembered how he could not say anything. Would not. They were each so afraid of hurting each other. Too afraid to say what needed to be said.

He wondered if it was the same with Fëanor and his Galadriel. He wondered how much went unsaid, and why—if it was pride, or fear. How deep did their love go? How could it last so long? When did it all start? Where did they meet—had he ever kissed her? Had she kissed back? Did they embrace, did they look into each other's eyes—did they plan to be together despite it all? Was it as bitter as theirs—yet how it could it possibly be so?

He was jealous. He was jealous, he was afraid, and he was afraid of being jealous. He was afraid of feeling like this. It wasn't because it hurt him—he had stopped caring about himself long ago. It was as if he never cared about himself. He only cared how these questions hurt her. She knew his mind. He knew that it hurt more for someone to not love one who loves them than it was to love where the love was not returned.

He could ask her all those questions, but they were water to the bitter red wine of another. _Why._

He closed his eyes, letting the tears come. And after she had found her redemption, she left. Left to Valinor. And he had let her go.

He would question this for the rest of his life, and he knew it wasn't too late to go. Though all the Ships were gone, he could make his own—his hands had once labored besides Círdan the Shipwright's, and they remembered as well.

He knew he would be able to leave, if he truly wanted to. He would miss Middle-earth, yes, with all of his soul—but his heart was with her, and it would never leave, bitter though that stay was. Home was not reason enough to let her go.

He knew that he would never forgive himself if he left. It would cause too much pain for her; him going to Valinor would cause a choice, a choice at the End between him and Fëanor. A choice that would break all of their hearts; her because she would break a heart; him because he would be alone; and Fëanor because there was another, a hesitation.

He didn't want to put her through that. He loved her enough. Celeborn may have been a fool in love, but he was not a fool for love. Galadriel, his belovéd Lady of Light, would have her Fëanor.

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A few quickie notes:

The quote in the beginning is Bill Clinton's, found in my thesaurus' quote-section under "memories."

I realize the impossibility of Fëanor/Galadriel—I'm not daft. Their joining would be socially unacceptable since it's basically incest, they're both too insufferably arrogant, Elves don't marry people they don't really love, etc., etc.

Feel free to rip this thing apart. I asked Marnie and Bridiliel to edit it, who both did excellent jobs, but no story is ever perfect, even mine (LOL.) I'm deadly serious when I say this is my first fanfiction, so any advice is more than welcome.

Thanks for reading! Please review if you have any comments, since I do want to get better at writing, and I'm awful at editing my own work.

Anya Cole

**:i: Saeriel**


	2. Ember

E M B E R

Second in the Fallacy Arc

By Saeriel

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"Madness is not the result of uncertainty but certainty."

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Words. Many words, etched into the cold stone of the Hall by a hand that would bleed but not stain the merciless walls. The words were slanting, curved, elegant by most standards; by those same standards, it was an unreadable mess of a language that none even wanted to remember.

Those words said many things, things that many people also did not want to remember. Secrets. Dark myths, tangles of truths that had become lies over the centuries and lies that had become truths. All written by the bleeding hand that only stopped to wipe tears from the weeping face.

The weeping face had once been handsome—had once been strong, had once been the face that the young idolized and the old respected; a rare combination. It was strong, yet retained the angular, almost gaunt features of the Eldar—and also pale, yet not unhealthily so. Dark hair was made all the darker in the ever-deepening shadows of the Hall—one of the passing wraiths had likened it to the oblivion of the Void in his mind, before he saw those bleeding hands and the weeping face, and fled down the iron-grey Halls.

It was a clean face as well. The tears washed it—but when the tears stopped and pride settled as an arrogant tilt to the chin, it would become a deathly grey with dust. This was from the words; behind the not-weeping face, his mind found it ironic that his own thoughts were trying to drown him, suffocate him with their intoxicating bitterness.

But in that clean face, set between dark lashes that century-old tears still regaled, were eyes.

As a child, he remembered being infinitely proud of his eyes. His father seemed to love them—seemed to, for, as he later learned with great bitterness, they were as the eyes of his deceased mother. Light cornflower grey, touched by the clear cyan waters that she had died besides. He remembered this, since the first jewel he crafted had been of that shade, the hue of his eyes and of his mother's, and had been set on his brow with silver leaves and pale gold flowers strung with shining soft copper wire.

But that had been a work of simplicity, the child's play of a child. Later, after his eyes darkened to a heart-of-a-storm blue with age, he made another jewel, one set with fierce gold and silver that flashed in the light of many candles. This jewel was the color of his eyes, his adult eyes. She had whispered into his ear that these must have been stolen from Eru himself, these storm-blue eyes.

She. Behind the weeping face, he mused on that simple title. _She_. _She _was a title all children would give to their mothers, all boys to their sweethearts—and all men to their wives.

In truth, he had no right to give that name to her, not with that meaning. He had never given her the silver betrothal rings—indeed, they were chaste even for the uncertain. Their greetings were secret smiles that were so small that they could be mistaken for a twitch when in the company of many; their partings, a long look that seemed to linger long after it had stopped. And their actions between, when alone—

The bleeding hand stopped, if only for a moment, then continued with renewed fervor. _Yes_... When they were alone, when there were none to judge or hinder, they would talk of matters that would make the most sinful heretic weep with shame. They talked of matters that had before been bid sacrilegious, of shattering all the laws, of uprising against the Gods themselves! They spoke long and fervently, parting only when suspicion would otherwise be aroused from others.

They did not need passion of the bodies—though in truth, he still yearned to touch her face in even a simple caress—but rather, the passion of the minds. Ardor was something too easily found in the whims of their bodies, though they both agreed hesitantly that that wasn't always a bad thing. However, true ecstasy was found in simple words, strung together and spoken to give them impossible meanings.

The mind behind the weeping face had often pondered that ceaseless question of _why_. Indeed, he would be surprised if she did not, for their minds were so similar that they could have been reflections on the glassy sea.

Why had they connected so flawlessly?

Why could they not bear this?

He paused again. He had never told her his latest speculation on it; on the other hand, she had not yet come to the Halls of the Dead, so it was quite safe to assume that she was alive, and probably better off not even remembering him. Knowing her, she had married simply to spite him.

Bitter bile rose in his throat at the thought of someone other than him touching her, another smoothing the tangled hair from her face, brushing away her tears, sheathing her sword, whispering in her ear—

He shuddered violently. His chisel jerked, turning an elegant glyph into so many shards of dust in the air. No. She was Noldo. She would never submit to any man like that. She was proud; she was perfect. Flawless.

_Unless he were her equal_…

That had been his thought when he had asked something of her, ask a gift where she had so long remained pure and content. He wanted to communicate something to her—something that wasn't capable of being expressed in words except in a simple and unworthy matter. He wanted to go further.

She had always been proud of her hair, proud in the way a child is proud a gift normally given to her elders. It was beautiful hair, yes, hair that had acted as a lens for her beauty. It fell uncaringly, a tumbling waterfall in the golden dawn, as if she wasn't aware of its sheer glory, and often wild and unbound. He had asked for a lock of it, to keep in the forge in a crystal of the greatest clarity, so as he toiled in her honor he could remember her fierce life, and fiercer love.

It was the first true act of courting that he had offered to her. Everything else had been just words. This was an act, a question, a request, asking if he could go further—if he could do more than just give her beautiful names, more than just to cry out when she fell, more than just brush her hair fondly from her brow when it hid her eyes…

He wanted more.

She fled.

He let her.

He wondered if he was the only one to let a loved one go; he wondered if he was the only one so… _stupid_. He had been so proud in those days before the Sun or Moon, proud enough to take such a slight as the direst insult to his

He never spoke to her after that, and she, him. At first, they had taken each-other's silence as a petty offering of peace—but pride would not allow them to accept it or break it themselves. Love may have been the cruelest master of them all, but pride was what molded uncertain infatuation into certain madness.

There had been a girl, a young girl that had always watched him from the shadows—a wise girl, but a girl all the same. Her soul was a watered liquor to the intoxication of Nerwen.

But she was still there, and although Nerdanel was wise she was still in love. Their courtship was brief, and he slipped the silver ring onto her hand after scarce a year. The utter hatred on Nerwen's face when the golden rings were exchanged was well worth splintering what honor remained to him.

Those years had gone by quickly; Nerdanel flowered with the golden ring on her hand, a pale rose with the rich light of Laurelin, and their children were many. They came to him in the forge, watching him work with the frank admiration only a child could have. They would ask him why he beat the gold so mercilessly, why the jewels he carved and shaped had to be so perfect.

He had never bothered to respond to these; usually, in any case. Nerdanel entered the sanctity of his forge just after giving birth to their seventh and final child. She was tired and worn, but still indignant—_Why can't you come to see your child?_, she would whisper with pleading eyes. _Why are you here; why must we come to _you? _Can you not be the father you never had?_

He didn't answer. He pretended that it was the roar of the bellows, but pretending was below him, and she knew it. Her words could not touch the man she loved.

_What have I done to displease you?_

No answer. Perhaps it was the ordeal of creation, that made her so weak—she turned to flee, pale tears falling down her face like wearied stars on the far horizon.

But she had stopped, those dim stars fading against the fierce gold light of his fire. Her eyes had been snagged on a necklace; not the delicate, slender kind he crafted to sate her fear of dying love, not the sort with soft shining gems that twinkled like dew and clustered like laughter. There was only one gem, and it was broad-cut, and did not depend on other, smaller stones for brilliance; it had a light of its own, stolen from the stars and sea. It had no one color, not even 'lucent', for it was all the colors around it, a glorious melding and mixing of the environment.

But still, this single great gem was not for him—he never wore jewelry, not even the brooches or encrusted scabbards that most Noldorin men had. And, despite its bold cuts and indelicate roping of gold and silver cords, it was a necklace for a lady, to match the hard lines and harder eyes that was very different from the soft, classical beauty of Noldorin women.

Despite its uniqueness, becauseof its uniqueness, she knew that it wasn't for her.

But Nerdanel was wise, and though not as arrogant as her husband, she was still proud. To be fooled like this, to be a pawn in a sordid vengeance… This was shame. This was a shame beyond a husband that did not love her except as a master loves an affectionate puppy, shame beyond seven children that preferred the cold pride of their father to the quiet wisdom of their mother.

Nerdanel was wise. She did not leave, since that would cause irreparable scandal to the House of Finwë, and she still loved Fëanor for and despite what he was. Nor, however, could she stay—a loveless marriage was not a joy, but a thralldom with chains of ice-hard responsibility that bit and tore into her soul like a blizzard to the soft trees of summer.

But Nerdanel must have known that he would not stop until the lady of the necklace was driven lower than the anchors of Telerin ships.

Fëanor had always had skill in the forge, a true gift of the Valar in the eyes of many. In particular, the cold jewels of stone, torn from the womb of the world before they could grow into their own light, had always caught his eye. His hands worked with them the best, it seemed, as if they had an understanding, giving them a light stolen from others.

The chisel paused in its endless marring of the wall. It was an apt metaphor, one that reaped fresh bitterness to feed his bloated pride. He understood those jewels in a way none but the more gnomic philosophers could guess at.

He and the jewels were both hard, unyielding, except for under an act of sheer strength, only changeable with blows that would shatter weaker gems—the topaz, the garnet, the agate. This absolute force would either diminish them into shadows of their former glory, changing the manner in which it absorbed and reflected outside light—or shatter them utterly, breaking them into shards only useful for floor mosaics, to be trod on by the bearers of more perfect jewels.

But with just the right taps—with a subtle change, an extra facet, a striation on the bottom—they became something of true glory, which took all that shone around it and made its light its own with the subtle refractions and reflections. Flaws could be eased away by those simple changes, or burned away in the fierceness of the forge—but still, to make the perfect gem, there could be no flaws to begin with.

He was only Noldo.

It was the bitterest lesson of all. His flaw, his one flaw, was his thirst for perfection—and then Nerwen had not this flaw! He would have been perfect with her, _they _would have been perfect, and she had scorned him!

Scorned _him_.

He thought she had loved him, that she had this same thirst…

_Scorned _him.

Not pride, but obsession. Not obsession, but pride. Were they not one and the same? His pride would not have been awoken without his obsession for her, for to have pride one must have love. But to have obsession, one must have pride, a reason for love, even if it was known only to Eru…

A pride for the jewel he loved, that jewel with the perfect flaw of not wanting perfection, not _needing _perfection, and an obsession for that jewel, for giving it that need, for giving it the jealous hatred that lurked behind all of love's façades…

No one ever learned that he had made the Silmarilli to spite her, to show he did not need her flawed perfection, did not need the captivating flame of a muse to light his darkened soul.

But even then, he wondered if they would be like mirrors for each other's souls, reflecting off glory and stolen light until it was their own, like the light of his Silmarilli. They had always been the greatest of the Eldar, but they would become greater still—_as great as the Valar! _he had proclaimed to her and the stars, unafraid of Varda's judgment.

Námo had dealt him the greatest retribution when he let him remember, where most of the dwellers of the Hall would forget through the misting years. Let the sinners be punished for their sins, despite their sins, by their sins.

The years after lighting the Silmarilli had passed in a searing haze, like a dream that one didn't whether know to fear or desire. He remembered fires in his father's eyes, fires in his home, fire in words, in swords, in boats in bodies, in dead, on him, _in _him…

It all seemed so distant now, as if he had been dead along, and the anesthetizing influence of the cold Halls had been shadowing him since the day he let her leave…

_Perhaps I already was_, part of him whispered. _Did I not fear her, did she not fear me, and did we not become animals when we succumbed to this fear of love?_

The answer was clear to him, like the most lifeless of his jewels: _Still afraid, still an animal, still in love, still an animal, still so dark, still afraid, still afraid… _

And those still fresh from their death would whisper amongst themselves, communing with souls that would try and pretend that they still lived. _He was an animal_, they would say, _driven mad by his loveless mother and unloving father. Aye, and twisted by Morgoth himself, as the Sinda to Orcs beneath the starless darkness of Utumno…_

Fëanor did not know whether to laugh or weep at these words. It could be so true—Morgoth had seen what lay between him and Nerwen, and the radiance of the Silmarilli must have been blinding besides the ironically dark soul of the Spirit of Fire.

To laugh was to know that _it wasn't his fault_, and to have another burden lifted from the back bent with sorrow. To weep was to see the futility of such a foe, and how he had fought anyway, and died beneath the flaming blade of one of his thralls…

He remembered little from those crimson years in Beleriand, and he was glad. If they were crisp and crystalline in his memory, they would stab him as mericifully as the memories of Nerwen.

Perhaps Námo had some pity for him, after all. On the other hand, there were precious few sinners that placed one lost jewel above three.

Fëanor was jarred from his nostalgia by a slight tap on the shoulder, which, although only of the shells Námo had bade them wear, still startled him. None had dared touch him or his wall of crimson-grey words before, afraid of the soul behind the grief, as if his self-pity may turn their own into something less selfish. He turned, though the chisel Námo had given him remained on the wall.

It was another ghost. Some part of him, as distant as the reddened Alqualondë, noted that the flush to her cheeks was reluctant to leave, even in death. Indeed, the high, proud tilt to her nose and forehead seemed almost Noldorin, though her hair was silver, like the thin, wispy crystals of _mithril _before forging into true metal; she was not of the High Elves, though she could be one of the unnatural halfbloods.

But her eyes—the eyes! They were almost familiar, in their pale shade of sapphire-blue, in how they gazed with such frank, seductive curiosity—

"Who are you?" she whispered, more a statement than a question—more '_what are you?' _than '_who.'_

The wall seemed to beckon to him to continue to write, the chisel quivering as his hands pleaded with his hedonism to express itself anew… but something rose to answer this desire, something old and buried and dark. Met it, and defeated it—but it could not defeat the veil over his memories, a veil that darted and flicked like clouds over the full moon. He knew this girl, this pale moon from death, these silver-lidded eyes that could not hinder a startling blue ocean from spilling out to gaze at him, _him_...

"I know not who I am," he replied softly. Guilt struck him anew, pleading with him to make her leave, so he could be freed of those knowing blue eyes: "Though I know I am evil."

The girl—no, a woman, though her face had the clear, melancholy look of a child's innocence lost—seemed saddened somewhat by this remark, evocated, almost—though the memories held behind those azuric eyes were not good ones. "You are not evil," she said, too quiet to be firm, as she had meant it to sound. "The Children of Varda are not evil."

He did not laugh, though he found her naïveté a satirical salve to his guilt. "Are the deeds of the Noldor so soon forgotten, and replaced by another?"

This seemed to strike her somehow; the silver hair fell forward like the first of the summer rains, hiding her face in the same way those storms would diffuse the landscape. She said nothing, though her meaning was clear: the Noldor were not forgotten, for their deeds still echoed across history as war drums after a battle that had been fought and lost. Nor had they been replaced; though the cruelness of their deeds had only been accented and scored the sorrow of the Children of Manwë.

But the timeless moment passed, and her silver hair was tucked behind her pointed ears. _Her neck is almost swan-like_, he found himself musing, and the guilt redoubled—ah, how long it was since he had seen Nerwen to be thinking of another lady as such! He had repented his pride, and he would not exchange silver rings with another, if only it meant his guilt would _go away_…

"You write much," she said, brushing closer to the wall—and to him. "Is it why—why your face—what you're—"

He nodded slightly, his eyes swiveling to face the silver-haired, blue-eyed girl again. "I write because I weep," he murmured, finding truth in the words even as he spoke them. "These words are what I bleed for, and I weep for my own pain."

"What is it that you write?" she asked, as curious as the child he had mistaken her for. Her grief forgotten, her death but a passing thought, she turned her quixotic cyan eyes to him.

It was strange; as if it were an upwelling fount, bubbling out of the frozen earth with the spring, a slow surprise came within him. "I do not know," he said, turning to face the wall. Like a bird above a battlefield he seemed, with armies of black etchings stretching small and dense, the slanting grooves of blades, the subtle curves of limbs; these soldiers all standing indictments to the weeping face, the bloody hand.

"What is the most precious word to you here?" the girl asked, prying tactlessly, like the child he had though her. For a fleeting moment, the arrogant, soulless Fëanor emerged, wishing to strike her down for her impudence—but it fell, lost once more within the suffocating depths of self-misery and guilt for thinking such thoughts towards this heartbreakingly innocent, sky-eyed child.

"Precious…" he echoed. The battlefield seemed to leap towards him, the soldiers rushing forward, their accusations proclaimed in the blades and spears that he had crafted for them. It was an impossible battle, for they were already winning, their war cries deafening, drowning him with meanings, regrets, guilt—

He crumpled on the floor, his legs folding beneath him. The chisel fell. His eyes clenched tightly, more tears squeezing out between dark lashes, but the mutinous mercenaries of his mind remained in his sight, as if a gold sigil emblazoned upon a standard of black.

The girl fell besides him. Her hands must have been as white as Nerwen's in life, for here, in death, they seemed like a wisp of clouds before the cruel sky of the Halls. And, like a cloud, it comforted him, tentative, cool against a suddenly feverish brow. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice pure with a naive guilt. "I shouldn't have asked that—these are your words, not mine—it wasn't my intent to hurt you—"

He spoke, though his voice gave no hint of his soundless tears other than a lacework of bitterness. "And what was your intent? To mock me where I have failed? To keep a sinner from forgetting his sins, from penance? To bring the image of my Lady once more to my mind, and then mock me with her visage?" And it was true; though his tongue seemed to have realized the similarity first, she did indeed resemble Nerwen in both her always-watching blue eyes and delicate features.

But Nerwen was not so innocent as this little girl, not so glaringly delicate, not so blind to what she saw—not so blind to herself. Did this girl not see how he took in her slender white neck as he remembered how he had caressed a similar one millenniums ago, watched her eyes as he remembered the way he had put the beauty of another's eyes into his stones, remembered how could take in all the light, but they still could not take in all the darkness as Nerwen could?

Indeed, if she were Nerwen, she would have stopped him as he reached for his fallen chisel, his jaw set in the arrogant line that he had died with. He spoke no words; none were needed as he set the chisel against the flesh of his left arm and began to press.

Her hands were cool, but damp like unkilned clay as she grasped at his right arm. But she was not Nerwen, not the Man-Woman who could outrace and outhunt the Noldorin men, and he was still a blacksmith, for Námo had given his guests the guise that they had worn in life. And her cries were to no avail; they fell upon deaf ears which cared only for the carving of his precious words upon his spirit-flesh, where they would last beyond the End.

This chisel was not a stonemason's chisel, which required a hammer for its shapings; it was for the delicate and precise engravings that jewelers required for their most fragile, using only the slight manipulations of the fingers. Though this had served him well to make his wall of lamentations, it could not tear at his flesh surely enough for his purposes. The sound of his flesh ripping was like wet paper tearing apart, and pained him as a mother in the throes of birth, cutting and slashing at his soul and body.

And, when the task was finally done, it was the girl, not Fëanor, who leaned heavily against the wall and began to weep. Her hands were glossed over with blood, like the shining glazes of a potter, and much of her ghost-white dress had taken on the hue of cherry blossoms, for the blood had wicked up the fibers in her dress, deigning not to stain it as brilliantly it had her hands. Some of her pale silver hair had been colored as well, appearing almost the faint orange of peaches in uneven streaks and blots.

But he collapsed as well; though he already knelt, his shoulders slumped, his legs folding beneath his body like the weak limbs of a baby horse, too exhausted with the ordeal of birth. Much of him was stained with blood, but it did not seem as bright upon his skin as upon the maiden's, nor did it stain as gracefully as the girl's white dress. The light gray-blue of his tunic turned a darker indigo, not quite the shade of his eyes, and his hair had matted, as if a wildman's.

Cruelly, he thrust his arm in front of the girl, who turned her face into the wall at this. "These are my precious words, _gûlwen_," he said, speaking to her in the tongue of the fey Sindar. "They are lies, but they are precious. They are _my_ lies!"

Those words were a desperate cry, a prayer through the Halls. Spirits turned from their ceaseless nostalgia, but turned back. He was no different from them.

The girl's face was still turned against the wall, as if drawing some strength to greaten her sobs from the words. Panting, he snatched the filmy material of her dress and spun her around to face him. Still, she did not look at him; her head was to the side, like some panting doe caught in a snare. "You are the daughter of Nerwen. When she dies, she will speak to you."

The girl's blue eyes slitted open, her lashes trembling with dew-like tears. "Mother will not die," she whispered, more a hopeful mantra that a prayer. "She is the Lady. She will not die."

He laughed, contemptuously. Carried by his pride, his grief, his despair, he spoke again. "She will die, and when she does, she will seek you out, for you are her daughter by a Sinda." _Sinda _was spoke contemptuously, for no wild, jewelless Elf could be worthy of Nerwen, not where he had failed. "And when she does, you will tell her about my wall, about my grief for her." He threw his arm out in front of her face again, taking a sadistic joy in how the blood dripped from the deep engravings to stain her flawless white dress, and how she read the blood-weeping words with fear—she may not have ever spoken Quenya, but she could guess at his most precious words. "You will tell her _this_."

"I will not," she murmured to the wall, closing her eyes and pressing herself away from him. He was looming over her now, blood running freely down his arm, and his eyes were dark with madness and grief. "The Lady does not love you, and your words will not sway her mind."

The words hit him like icy blasts of wind, waking him from his feverish haze of pride. But still he screamed against it, shouting his defiance at what he could not change. "You will tell her that she is mine! She is mine, mine, _mine!_"

The words echoed, ripples in a pond, and they seemed to drown the girl's resolve. "I will tell her," she whispered at last, after the echoes had died, "but she loves you not. She loves Celeborn, my father. She loves Celebrían, I, her daughter; she loves my husband, Elrond." Her voice was gaining strength; had it possessed the venom it implied, Námo would have been hard-pressed to keep up with how many times he died within. "She loves my daughter, Arwen, fair as Lúthien, and she loves the Orcs whose poison killed me upon the Grey Ships, and whose blood my sons drank as I lay dying, as she loves my strong and terrible sons. But she does not love you, Fëanor of the Jewels. You are the only thing she hates."

Celebrían, no longer so innocent, stood, and in her Fëanor saw the strength and wisdom that he had loved so much in his Nerwen—but he had no love for this blind girl, so blind that she could not see her blindness. She was flawed yes, but not perfectly flawed like Nerwen, like _his _Nerwen. She was not bitter enough to be Nerwen, not bitter enough to be himself, and not bitter enough that he could love her.

That was the flaw he loved, not a lack of desire for perfection! What a fool he had been, to think Nerwen did not thirst to better their Creators, when they had spoken of that matter a thousand times before she fled...

But for Celebrían… she had it not. Nerwen made sure that her daughter did not reflect what she most hated and most loved. "Cry your tears, O Weeping Elda, and may your words bleed upon your arm. If the Lady comes, I will tell her, but she will not come to you."

And the strength subsided, the tide ebbing; her delicate features were exposed, which hid her strength far better than Nerwen's ever had. "NamáriëCurufinwë. I will tell her that she is yours."

And as she left so she could weep in private, he could not stop staring at those words etched within his skin, how they swept and bled like his mind. _She is mine_, they screamed to the air, but no one but Námo could hear, no one but Nienna could have understood, and no one but Nerwen could have comforted the tortured soul who did not know how to weep for anyone but himself.

**:i:**

Notes:

The quote at the beginning is Friedrich Nietzsche's, found while reading _The Best Liberal Quotes Ever_.

Sorry about the long hiatus; life got in the way for a while. But I have lots of bling-bling now, most of them with blue ribbons. So no regrets on this end.

I did take a little liberty as far as Celebrían is concerned, but, since Tolkien never covered what exactly occurred on the Grey Ships, I decided that she could die of Orc-poison on the ride over. A bit AU, but I hope you'll excuse me. I'm not a fan of Celebrían.

Ah; and if I screwed up in my interpretation of the Halls, please correct me. I haven't read tHoME series yet, but in everything else the Halls aren't really given a good description. So, again, artistic interpretation. If anyone has canon-bites, tell me and I'll weed them into a later draft.

Edited by me, which isn't saying much, and Leslie Vaas, which is. She's awesome, but she's _my _editor. So sue me if I'm possessive. She's under the penname of Mithostwen here.

Thanks for reading! Constructive criticism is appreciated far more than a 'good work' (or a 'you suck!', for that matter), and I can take whatever you've got.

Anya Cole

**:i: Saeriel**


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